PRESCIENCE. 



PRESCIENCE: 

OR TH" ' y ' 

SECRETS OF URINATION. 

A POEM. 
IN TWO PARTS. 



By 



EDWARD SMEDLEY, Jun. 

XV 



FRUSTRA AUGURIUM VANI DOCUERE PARENTES. 



LONDON: 

PRINTED FOR JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE- 

STREET ; 

EY W. BULMER AND CO. CLEVELAND-ROW. 



1816. 



<3 



Gift. 
W. L. Shoemaker 
7 S 












" DIVINATION hath been anciently and 
" fitly divided into Artificial and Natural : 
" whereof Artificial is, when the Mind 
" maketh a prediction by argument concluding 
" upon signs and tokens : Natural is, when 
" the Mind hath a presentiment by an internal 
" power without the inducement of a sign. 
" Artificial is of two sorts, either when the 
" argument is coupled with a derivation of 
" causes, which is Rational, or when it is 



VI 



" only grounded upon a coincidence of the 
" effect, which is Experimental : whereof 
" the latter for the most part is superstitious : 
" such as were the heathen observations upon 
" the inspection of sacrifices, the flight of 
" Birds, the swarming of Bees ; and such as 
" were the Chaldaean astrology, and the like. 
« For Artificial DIVINATION the se- 
" veral kinds thereof are distributed amongst 
" particular knowledges. The Astronomer 
" hath his predictions, as of Conjunctions, 
" Aspects, Eclipses^ and the like. The Phy- 
" sician hath his predictions of Death, of 
" Recovery, of the accidents and issues of 
" Diseases. The Politician hath his predic- 
'• tions, ' Urhem venalem, et cito perituram 
" si emptor em invenerit? which stayed not 



Vll 



u long to be performed in Sylla first, and after 
" in Csesar. So as these predictions are now 
" impertinent and to be referred over. But 
" the DIVINATION which springeth from 
u the internal nature of the soul, is that which 
" we now speak of, which has been made to 
"be of two sorts; Primitive, and by In- 
" fluxion. Primitive is grounded on the 
" supposition that the Mind when it is with- 

* drawn and collected into itself, and not 
" diffused into the organs of the body, hath 
" some extent and latitude of Prenotion ; 
" which, therefore, appeareth most in Sleep, 
" in Extasies, and near Death, and more 
" rarely in waking apprehensions ; and is in- 
" duced and furthered by those abstinences, 

* and observances, which make the Mind most 



Vlll 



" to consist in itself. By Influxion is 
" grounded upon the conceit that the Mind, 
K as a mirror or glass, should take illumination 
u from the foreknowledge of GOD and 
" Spirits: unto which the same regimen 
" doth likewise conduce. For the retiring 
" of the Mind within itself is the state most sus- 
" ceptible of Divine Influxions; save that 
" it is accompanied in this case with a fervour 
" and elevation, which the Ancients noted by 
u Fury, and not with a repose and quiet, as it 
" is in the other." Bacox, Of the Ad- 
vancement of Learning, Book II. 



PRESCIENCE. 



B 



Argument of $art tt)e f\z$t. 



Introduction — The half-year night of the Polar 
World — Its darkness sometimes broken for a short 
period by meteors — Similar darkness of the Soul 
while linked to the body — Its occasional glimpses of 
higher knowledge — More particularly at the ap- 
proach of death — Its involuntary impulses — The 
wish for knowledge of futurity in youth — This wish 
still stronger in more advanced life — The defect of 
positive knowledge compensated by belief in the 
certainty of the immortality of the Soul — Conso- 
lation which this affords on the death of those dear 
to us — Presumption of all farther inquiries — Su- 
perstition of the Egyptians— Of the Greeks — The 
Delphic Oracle — The Daemon of Socrates — Of the 
Romans — The fountain of Egeria — The Cumsean 



[4] 

Sibyl — Augury — Astrology of the Chaldseans — 
Portents preceding the death of Caesar — The Evil 
Genius of Brutus — Scandinavian Mythology — In- 
vocation of the dead by the Runic prophetesses 
before the Northern maritime expeditions — Rites 
of the Druids — Stone Henge — Human Sacrifices 
— Progressive influence of Reason in eradicating 
Superstition— Some still remaining — Witchcraft 
— Absurdity of attributing to Evil Spirits any 
visible ascendency over man— Conclusion of Part 
the First. 



PART THE FIRST. 



PRESCIENCE. 



PART THE FIRST. 



In the black skies where clouds eternal roll, 
And night inshrouds her undiscover'd Pole ; 
Where hous'd with darkness, in their earthy cell 
The shivering sons of lengthened winter dwell ; 
No sun, scarce peering o'er some ice-clad height, 
Streaks the red orient with his hues of light ; 
No beams of evening, in their course delay'd, 
Pierce the deep void of universal shade ; 



S PRESCIENCE. Part I. 

Till the slow months with doubtful gleam illume 
The cold and dreary wilderness of gloom ; 10 

And o'er the far horizon faintly play 
The chequer'd shadows of imperfect day. 

Yet often there, above, beneath, around, 
When stirs no sign of light, or life, or sound ; 
When cheerless Nature bosom' d on the deep, 
In night and silence sleeps, or seems to sleep ; 
Flashing strange portents o'er the astonished heaven, 
The fleeting meteors of the North are driven ; 
Shake their red tresses from the troubled sky, 
And cast one momentary beam and die, 20 

So to this prison of dull clay confin'd, 
In darkness broods the imperishable Mind. 
Fain would it urge through realms untried its course, 
And drink the floods of knowledge from their source ; 



Parti. PRESCIENCE. 9 

Trace each mysterious secret of its frame, 

Know whither tends its doom, and whence it came. 

Yet as its glance to nobler scenes ascends, 

Some grosser film the glorious vision ends ; 

Thick clouds of Sense o'er all the prospect roll, 

And check the aspiring energy of Soul : 30 

Till chill'd and baffled on its lowly way, 

It chides the lingering night, and pants for day. 

And comes not then the day ! Ah, who shall tell 
In other skies what starry legions dwell ! 
In what bright streams departed Spirits lave ! 
What sun eternal glows beyond the grave ! 
For oft when heaves the last expiring breath, 
And the soul quivers on the lips of death ; 
When worlds unseen the immortal essence claim, 
And life scarce struggles for this yielding frame ; 40 



10 PRESCIENCE. Part I. 

When all the fierceness of that pang is tried, 
Which casts the slough of earthly mold aside ; 
When man's frail being can no more endure, 
And the last agony hath made him pure ; 
Celestial beams have fired the closing eye, 
And the voice peal'd with strains of prophecy. 
Then too, such sounds from dying lips escape, 
As if they commun'd with some viewless shape. 
Haply above the sufferer's couch may bend 
The watchful spirit of some guardian friend ; 50 
And cleans'd from gross mortality's alloy, 
Smooth his bright passage to the realms of joy. 
It seems as nearer verging to its home, 
The parting Soul exists in things to come ; 
Bursts the dim twilight, and in morning skies 
Beholds a world of richer promise rise ; 



Part J. PRESCIENCE. 11 

Catches the reddening face of day, and soon 
Dares the full blaze of Heaven's eternal noon. 

Oft too amidst our intellectual night, 
Will flash some strange involuntary light : 60 

Cheer the dim coldness of our wintry sky, 
And point the glimmering paths of Destiny. 
Then, through the thick obscure, and desert wide, 
Some meteor impulse seems our steps to guide : 
Breaks from a point where all was dark before, 
Tracks one bright furrow, and is seen no more. 

Oh ! Who in youth has spread his venturous 
sail 
To the full gust of passion's feverish gale ; 
Toy'd with each breath which whisper'd round his 

mast, 
And wooed and lur'd him from the shore at last ; 70 



12 PRESCIENCE. Part I. 

And thought no future whirlwind could o'erwhelm 
The flaunting glories of his summer helm ; 
Till idly trusting to the traitor breeze, 
His light skiff dances on the midmost seas. 
Then marked, all careless, o'er the distant strand 
Some cloud scarce bigger than the human hand ; 
And watch'd its growth, till brooding o'er his 

head, 
One veil of angry darkness is outspread ; 
Who, in that threatening pause of grim delay, 
Hath stemm'd the terrors of his ocean way, 80 

Nor wish'd for light his dubious course to mark, 
Though 'twere the bolt of heaven which scathed 

his bark ! 
So, when the Cloud-compeller's heavenly shield 
O'ershadow'd Ida, with its ample field ; 



Part I. PRESCIENCE. 13 

As ths loud thunder roll'd upon his ear, 
The conscious hero droop'd his useless spear. 
Look'd to the gathering mists with anxious eye, 
And marked the wrath of present Deity ; 
Then raised to heaven a hand unused to pray, 
And ask'd to perish in the face of day. 90 

And if when youth and hope our hours employ, 
And the heart trembles to the pulse of joy ; 
One little cloud can o'er our revels press, 
And dim the noontide of our happiness ; 
If the few drops which fall from April's wing, 
Scatter the purple blossoms of our spring ; 
What then can warm the cheerless frost of age ! 
What the worst fears of parting life assuage ! 
When Reason totters on her doubtful throne, 
And starts, receding from the dread unknown ; 100 



14 PRESCIENCE. Part I. 

Fears e'en herself, and chides that erring pride 
Which taught her earlier blindness to decide ; 
Hang we in darkness o'er life's utmost brink, 
Hopeless to rise, yet unprepared to sink ? 
Is there no steep on which the Seer may stand, 
To catch some glimmering of his promis'd land ? 
By one small circle in his eye delay'd, 
One bleak horizon of unbroken shade ? 
No ! He whose wisdom darkling Reason shed, 
That guiding cloud before our day-path spread ; 110 
With steadier radiance gilds approaching night, 
And fires his beacon flame of pillar'd light. 

'Tis then thy prize, immortal Faith, is nigh, 
And Heaven's own brightness flashes on thine eye ! 
It is not Hope — her visions are too cold 
For joys eye never saw, tongue never told ! 



Part I. PRESCIENCE. 15 

It is not Hope— her wandering view may gaze 

Where blushes Morn with ineffectual rays ; 

But dimm'd by Noon's insufferable beam 

Dares not the full excess of Glory's stream. 120 

It is the One whose being flies our view ; 

The still, small voice which ever whispers true ; 

The share of Godhead to our nature thrown ; 

The spark of Him whose image form'd our own. 

It is that Spirit which, when Time began, 

Mov'd o'er the floods, and bless'd it's goodly plan ; 

Now brooding o'er Eternity's abyss, 

Wakes a new world as once it waken'd this. 

Hark ! the same Fiat pierces Night's domain, 

" Let there be Light !" and all is Light again. 130 

'Tis this which whispers solace from the bier 
Where moulders all the heart hath cherished here ; 



16 PRESCIENCE. Part L 

Tis this which gilds the twilight of the tomb, 
Thou art not lost for ever in its gloom, 
For ever lost, my Brother ! — Oh ! not all 
Shall slumber on ; but at the mighty call 
Of the dread harbinger of endless Fate 
The captive Soul shall burst its prison gate. 
Such is the glorious certainty which cheers 
The sad survivor's manly-flowing tears ; 140 

And pours the sweetness of immortal breath 
Through the dark valley of the shade of Death. 
Where is the Spirit now ! th' immortal flame 
Which glow'd beneath yon cold and lifeless frame ! 
Where now that lofty and aspiring Mind, 
Lord of itself, and friend of all its kind ! 
It sigh'd not from the bosom ; for I knelt 
Close to the heart, and its last pulses felt. 



Part I. PRESCIENCE. 17 

It flash'd not from the eye ; I watch'd its beam 
Fix'd on mine own, and drank its parting stream. 150 
Yet is that bosom hush'd ; and faded now 
The doubtful lustre which illum'd that brow : 
Mute are the lips which seem'd on life to dwell, 
As if not yet content with doing well ; 
Which linger'd on their utterance but to pour 
To Friendship's ear one gentle accent more. 
Rent too are now those heartstrings which alone 
Throbb'd for our suffering, mindless of their own ; 
Told not approaching Death lest We should weep, 
And when they ceas'd to beat but seem'd to sleep. 16o 

Thought can but little trace the fearful way 
The Soul must traverse when it quits its clay : 
The unfathomable depths of boundless space, 

The viewless worlds which gird its resting place, 
C 



18 PRESCIENCE. Part I. 

Is it then sleep ? — yes ! long unbroken sleep ! 
Chill is the couch thy slumbering limbs must keep ! 
Curtain'd in night — the worm their bosom mate ! 
Their dream — ah ! who that dreaming can relate ! 
And when they wake — when at their prison doors 
Its all-arousing Mast the trumpet pours ; 170 

When the dread Herald rushes on the wind, 
And summons forth the sons of human kind ; 
I. see Thee then, my Brother ! — to thine ear 
Sweet flows the warning which the guilty fear ; 
The matin lay which heavenly minstrels sing, 
" Joy to the Blessed ! Glory to their King !" 
Fresh, as from light repose, I see Thee rise, 
Eternal Hope bright gladdening round thine eyes ; 
And holy meekness, and the sainted smile 
Which Rapture wreathes on lips unknown to guile. 



Part I. PRESCIENCE. 19 

Thou goest before me — some few steps before — 

Ah ! if we join, we cannot sever more ! 18*2 

I see thee beckon — lead me onward now, 

If at the sapphire throne I dare to bow ; 

Till snatch'd for one brief moment from my sight, 

I lose thee in an endless blaze of Light ! 

Presumptuous Man ! while thus thy views extend 
Beyond the bounds where Time and Being end ; 
Dar'st thou repine that darkness intervenes 
Betwixt the present and the future scenes ! 190 
Deem nothing found, while aught remains unknown, 
And press with Angels round the viewless throne ! 
While this too little, that too much you call, 
And rail at Heaven unless it gives you all; 
Is that too much which never checks Free Will, 
But leaves unbiass'd choice of good or ill ? 



20 PRESCIENCE. Pert I. 

Or think you it a mean and poor supply, 
When all your knowledge tells, " Thou shalt not 
die"? 

Go then, and bow with Egypt's juggling Priest, 
Worship each Fish, and Plant, and Bird, and Beast : 
Let Ibis here your future progress shape, 201 

There chatter Reason with her golden Ape. 
Point the sharp obelisk, or trace the stone 
With monster forms and characters unknown ; 
Then some foreseeing Leek your doom may state, 
Or wiser Apis bellow signs of Fate. 

Or if, perchance, barbaric rites offend, 
Turn where more polished climes your steps 

attend : 
Where heaven-rapt maids their frantic vigils keep, 
And Grecian wisdom guards the Delphic steep. 210 



Part I. PRESCIENCE. 21 

There the meek tone of suppliant wealth assume, 

And heap the tripod with thy rich perfume ; 

Devotion's purest, holiest gifts unfold, 

Here gems of Indus, there Sofala's gold. 

Lo ! from the shrine mysterious voices swell, 

And the loud earthquake rocks the secret cell ; 

Now from his lips prophetic accents flow, 

And the God teaches — all the God can know. 

Full on thine eyes Apollo's glories beam, 

What hast thou learnt ? — a riddle and a dream ! 220 

Yet though the sterner eye may dare invade 
The haunts of Phoebus, and Dodona's shade ; 
Though Reason shed her philosophic day, 
And pierce the shrine, and rend the veil away ; 
Still on each ruined fane and shattered pile 
The gentler Muses cast a lingering smile ; 



22 PRESCIENCE. Part I 

And cherish every consecrated cell 
Where Valour bow'd, and Genius lov'd to dwell. 
Cold were his heart whose pulses would not thrill 
By Theseus' mount or Cecrops' holy hill ! 230 

Ruthless that hand which from Athena's face 
Would tear one wreck of late- surviving grace ! 
Oh ! may He ever sleep, if such there be, 
Beneath the shade of some devoted tree ; 
Still bend at noon with unacquainted feet 
Where angry Faunus all his paths may meet ; 
Or tempt the trespass of that secret wave 
Where Dian and her huntress virgins lave ! 

Oh ! for that voice whose warning accents flow'd, 
Belov'd Hymettus, round thy sweet abode ! 240 
Whose whisper check'd the listening Sage's thought, 
And all that Heaven forbade him inly taught : 



Parti. PRESCIENCE. 23 

Told him that foul'd by sense, with passion rife, 
To live is nothing, to live well is life : 
Pointed the course which Virtue loves to run, 
And hail'd the death which Virtue dar'd not shun. 
Oh ! for those slumbers which the good forewarn, 
Dreams lightly wafted on the wings of morn ; 
Those forms which shadow things our sight above, 
Hope's certain mirror, visions sprung from Jove. 
Lo ! by his couch the beckoning Spirit stands, 251 
Folds her white robe, and points to other lands ; 
" Pleasant the voyage which the God's decree, 
" And Pthia opes her glittering gates to thee." 

Or lead me, lead me, to Aricia's glade, 
'Mid hallowed gloom and unapproached shade ; 
llapt let me trace the solitary way, 
Where Gods themselves, unseen by mortals, stray. 



24 PRESCIENCE. Part I. 

How sweetly springs the silver-skirted wave 
From the grey pumice of its living cave : 260 

How bright, how clear, the sparkling waters flow 
Through the fresh moss which guards their course 

below ! 
Curs'd be that hand, whose costly pride would 

chain 
The frolic Naiad of that wild domain ; 
Teach her to bend in unaccustom'd stone, 
Or ravish Nature from her sylvan throne ! 

Nymph of the fount ! Before thy shrine I bow, 
List, sweet Egeria, to a Poet's vow ! 
Ne'er shall these feet in rash and heedless mood, 
Dull with their tread thy consecrated flood ; 27 
Ne'er shall rude glance, nor idly-curious eye, 
Invade thy chaste sequester'd privacy ; 



Part I. PRESCIENCE. 25 

Still to thy wave shall flow the purpling wine, 

Still the wild ivy- wreath thy grot intwine ; 

And no ungrateful numbers duly sing 

The beech whose shadow dances on thy spring ! 

So, pour the warblings, not to Him unknown, 

The pious monarch of the maple throne ; 

Purge the gross ear, illume the vision blind, 

And wake the slumbering Spirit of the Mind ! 280 

Nymph of the fount ! in vain I urge my vow, 
Mute is thy grot, thy valley silent now. 
Sole on the cliff, where still Diana rears 
Her relicks, mouldering in the pride of years,, 
1'rom some worn stone the builder stork replies 
To the lone bittern's melancholy cries. 
Below, where weeds thick -twining rankly wave, 
And skreen the chaste Athenian's secret grave, 



26 PRESCIENCE. Parti. 

The courser bounding o'er th 'unguarded dead, 
Profanes the turf forbidden to his tread. 290 

Sadly, and slow, my curious steps explore 
The sounding depths of Cumse's desert shore : 
The grove which bosoms Trivia's fated cell, 
The rock high-arching o'er the gates of hell, 
The lake sulphureous and the steaming ground, 
The grot which echoes to no mortal sound. 
Hark ! the rude tempest of the closing year 
Mourns through the grove ; the leaves are brown 

and sere; 
Autumnal blasts the shattered branches wave, 
And strew the hundred portals of the cave. 300 
Haste ere a second whirlwind hurtles by, 
Gather the leaves, and mark them as they lie : 
Trace the dark signs which coming deeds relate, 
And read the characters which teem with Fate. 



Part I. PRESCIENCE. 27 

Or if with bolder step thou dar'st invade 
The lifeless regions of eternal shade ; 
If Virtue lend her radiance as thy guide, 
Or favouring Jove unclose a world denied ; 
Deep in the grove thy mystic prize behold, 
Tempt the dread trial, pluck the bough of gold. 310 
Then through the realms of night, securely tread, 
Cross the dark stream, and commune with the dead ! 
From all the perils of that fabled way, 
The gate of ivory leads thee back to day. 

Ingenious folly of the seeming wise, 
To read all Nature by analogies ; 
Guidance of life to lifeless things depute, 
And lend the voice of Reason to the mute ! 
Think ye that Fate would stamp her secret sign 
In the warm entrails of the reeking swine ? 320 



28 PRESCIENCE. Part I. 

Or teach the fortune of the coming fight, 
As the clouds thunder to the left or right ? 
Lo ! they, the mighty, whose ambition wide 
Seem'd o'er the world, Colossus-like, to stride ; 
Whose Eagles, aping Heaven's dominion, soar'd 
O'er lands unthought of, oceans unexplored ; 
These sons of triumph at the Raven's wail 
Have stayed the rush of battle, and turned pale. 
Cowards have sought, and Heroes shunned the plain, 
As starving pullets dropped or pecked the grain. 330 

Rapt far from earth Chaldasa's gazing Seer 
Tracks the bright pathway of the sun's career ; 
Names all the monsters of the peopled sky, 
Marshals the stars, and counts the galaxy ; 
Then lends the guidance of Man's future hours, 
To the high guardianship of heavenly powers ; 



Part I. PRESCIENCE. 29 

And from the East, with hope or fear descries, 
Herald of doom, his Horoscope, arise. 
There Jove and Venus smile with favouring sign, 
Here Mars is adverse, Saturn is malign : 340 

Lords of their Lord th' ascendant Planets roll, 
And sway'd by Nature, Nature's self control. 

Thus when their steel the Band of Brothers drew 
And Freedom bathed it in her holiest dew ; 
When at the base, where imag'd Pompey stood, 
His thirsty spirit drank ambition's blood ; 
Heaven on the deed it lov'd forebore to smile, 
And mourn'd its cause could triumph but awhile. 
Then, as they tell, the sorrowing Lord of Day 
Veiled his bright coronal, and quench'd his ray ; 350 
Glanced towards Philippi with diminished light, 
And shrank as conscious of the coming fight. 



PRESCIENCE. Part I. 

The fight was near — already on the plain, 
Thousands had slept, who ne'er shall sleep again, 
Unless that dreamless nothing sleep we call 
Whose couch is spread for ever and for all. 
'Twas that strange season when the waning night 
Unfolds her dusky wing to fly from light ; 
When 'tis not morning, yet one single ray 
Flung from the East, would almost make it day. 360 
Well may the waking fear that doubtful hour, 
When Spirits sail abroad, and Fiends have power ; 
And o'er the slumberer's fancy-wilder'd view, 
Flits many a dream, whose warning may be true. 
By the dim taper in his tented dome, 
Then sate the last best son of falling Rome ; 
The patriot dagger at his right hand lay, 
Whose point had rent great Caesar's soul away ; 



Part I. PRESCIENCE. 



31 



And in each pause of thought he trac'd the page 
Rich with the honey of Athena's sage. 370 

Can those be footsteps which his ear assail ? 
Tis but the burden of the twilight gale ! 
Is that a shadow which deceives his eye ? 
He glances round — there's nought but vacancy ! 
A moment yet he looks — it stands there now, 
Shap'd as before, and horror on its brow ! 
Fierce from each dim and shadowy feature broke 
The chilling smile which sated vengeance spoke : 
It rais'd the purple which was folded round, 
And bared and counted many a gaping wound ; 380 
Stretch'd its lank finger where the falchion lay, 
Pointed the battle plain, and sternly strode away ! 

Calm sate the Hero ; once before his eye 
Glar'd on that nameless vision passing by ; 



32 PRESCIENCE. Part I. 

Dwelt on th' unearthly warning which it gave, 
And saw, and listen'd as became the brave. 
Vain all the portents which beset his way, 
The dream by night, the Sun obscur'd by day : 
One only star could fix his longing view, 
Th' unerring beam which patriot valour threw ! 

Is it then wise to dwell on Nature's flaws, 391 
And read her rarer wonders for her laws ? 
From undiscover'd problems trace our Fate, 
And where we cannot find a cause, create ? 
Has Earth such close communion with the skies, 
That They must tremble when a monarch dies ? 
Or if a Comet flings abroad its hair, 
Need nations feel perplex'd, or kings despair ? 
Think not the Stars with over- curious eye 
Brood o'er this speck of dull mortality : 400 









Port I. PRESCIENCE. 3,3 

Whate'er the fortunes of our little ball, 
One motion bids their lights or rise or fall ; 
And fix'd though empires flourish or decay, 
The Sun pursues his never-changing way. 
In darker climes our Scandinavian sires 
Pil'd on their hearth of snow mysterious fires ; 
And wildly festive by the pine-tree light 
Hail'd the slow rising of the Mother-Night : 
Then as the flame or dimly burnt, or clear, 
Trac'd all the fortune of the coming year. 410 

For them the Sisters o'er their gory loom 
Weave the red web, and chaunt the song of doom ; 
And as their hands the grisly texture strain, 
Sport life away, and revel with the slain. 
For them Valhalla's opening porch invites 
The lov'd of Odin to its fierce delights ; 
D 



34 PRESCIENCE. Part I. 

There virgin hands dispense the golden mead, 
And fill the skulls for those who dare to bleed. 
Far off in Hela's gulph of Anguish lie 
The coward few whose spirit fear'd to die ; 420 
The few rejected from the battle grave, 
Where Valour beckons to her chosen brave ; 
Who basely moulder in their house of clay, 
And darkle through the twilight of decay. 
There grim Delay and Expectation wait, 
With lonely Precipice who guards the gate ; 
There Leanness plucks the slumber from their eye, 
And Famine points the feast, and leads them by. 
Heard ye the magic song, the charmer's tone, 
The voice which echoed from Upsala's stone ! 430 
There, sprung from Kings, by Freya's altar stand, 
Feeding th' eternal flame, her maiden band. 



Part I. PRESCIENCE. 35 

Thrice swells the moody strain in triple chime, 
And backward thrice they trace the Runic rhyme ; 
The rhymes deep graven on her shrine, which run 
Their circled course averted from the Sun. 
By Him, the Terrible, the Battle's Lord, 
The blood-delighting Feeder of the sword ! 
By the fierce Hurler of the mace of power ! 
By Her who shares the Father's nuptial bower ! 440 
They pour the mighty call — " Awake ! Awake ! 
" Sons of the tomb, your chilly slumber break ! 
" Rouse from your ashes of sepulchral flame, 
6( List to the maidens who invoke your name ! 
" Not for the workmanship of dwarfs we call, 
" The sword which moulders in your sullen hall ; 
" Not for the Virgin's search, Hialmar's bane, 
" The seal of Death, the Father of the slain. 



36 PRESCIENCE. Part I. 

" Lo ! from their rocky couch th' Avengers spring, 
" The Hive already whets its busy sting ; 450 

" Already thousands clasp their helmed brow, 
"And the red streamer crowns the dragon prow. 
1 ' Lords of the wave they ply the northern oar, 
" Tempt the strange ocean, seas untried explore. 
" 'Tis for their fate our songs of might unclose 
" The bonds which knit you to your fierce repose. 
" Say shall their bones uncover'd face the sky, 
" Unwash'd the bloody bed on which they lie; 
u Or drunk with slaughter at the captive's grave, 
" Shall Odin quaff the banquet of the brave ? " 

To gentler scenes the Minstrel may repair 
When the soft moonbeam tints the golden air ; 
There drink the fancies pious cells impart, 
And trace their lavish wantonness of Art ; 



, 









Part I. PRESCIENCE. 37 

C haunting in Lay far richer than his theme 
The holy pride of Tweed's enamour'd stream. 
But would you view the Druid's fane aright 
Choose not the stilly season of " Moonlight.'* 
Rather when heaven's vast face is one black cloud, 
And darkness clasps all Nature in her shroud ; 470 
When the big rain falls pattering thick and fast, 
And the storm howls upon the gusty blast ; 
Then gather round your cloak — well suits the time 
To tread the circle of that haunted clime. 
Far o'er the dreary heathsward lies your road, 
So far it seems not part of Man's abode, 
So dreary that in silence you may bless 
The friendly gloom which hides its loneliness. 
But little needs the torches ruddy glare 479 

To tell you when your steps have wander'd there : 



38 PRESCIENCE. Part I. 

So bright the lightning's angry glance is thrown 
Where frowns that mighty shapelessness of stone. 
Huge, and immeasurable; breadth, and height, 
And thickness which o'ercharge the wondering sight; 
As if the Fallen in his sport had rent 
Some rock for his eternal monument ; 
And hurl'd the shivering quarry where it lies. 
Fit emblem of his pride, and might, and size. 
Apart from all the rest One seems to stand, 
Grim-visaged Porter to the Brother band ; 490 
The Brother band, who fix'd for ever there, 
In sullen state o'erlook the desert lair. 
Few, yet how many ! never to be told 
Aright by man, or number 'd in their fold. 
Work, as the peasant fondly frames his tale, 
Of him, the Wizard of Cayr-Merdin's vale : 



Part I. PRESCIENCE. 39 

Or sudden, of themselves upsprung from earth, 
Convuls'd and shrinking from her monstrous birth. 
Erst girt around with everlasting Oak, 
Whose broad limbs never felt the woodman's stroke : 
Seen but by purer eyes, to which were known 501 
The lustral vervain, and the paddock stone : 
Touch'd but by hands which cull'd the golden bough* 
Mute to all lips but those which pour'd the vow. 
Such have they stood, till dim Tradition's eye 
Looks vainly back on their obscurity. 
Through the wild echoes of their maze have roll'd 
Fierce harpings fit to rouse the slumbering bold : 
And many a song which check'd the starry train, 
And bade the Moon her spell-bound car restrain. 510 
For some in such mysterious ring of stone, 
Could mark the semblance of Heaven's fiery zone ; 



40 PRESCIENCE. Part I. 

Read lore celestial in each mass, and name 
The planets courses from its magic frame. 
Haply no common rites have there been done, 
Strange rites of darkness which abhor the Sun. 
There charms, and divination, and the lay 
Which trembling fiends must list to, and obey ; 
And horrid sacrifice : the knife has dared 
To search his bosom whom the falchion spar'd ; 520 
O'er some pale wretch, yet struggling with the blow, 
The Seer has bent to watch his life-blood flow ; 
Felt the pulse flutter, seen the eye grow dim, 
Mark'd the quick throe and agony of limb ; 
Then pluck'd the living heart-strings from their seat, 
And read each separate fibre while it beat. 

Scarce can I tell, what forms beneath the gloom 
My rapt eye bade those fearful stones assume : 



Part I. PRESCIENCE. 41 

Shapes which ev'n memory shudders to relate, 
Monsters which fear will to herself create. 530 

Methought the Synod of those Gods appeared, 
Whose damned altar mid the pile was reared ; 
O'er the rude shrine in grim delight they stood, 
And quaff d the still life-quivering victim's blood. 
The lightning gave their brow a fiercer scowl, 
The North-wind louder swell'd their frantic howl ; 
And as the skies wept on th' accursed place, 
I felt the gore-drop trickle down my face ! 
Fierce with the phrenzied boldness of despair, 
I touched the giant fiend who revell'd there ; 540 
It mov'd not, liv'd not, it was very stone ; 
Oh, God ! I joy'd to find myself alone ! 

Hard were the task each rite obscure to tell, 
Each charm which soften'd Heaven or govern'd Hell : 






42 PRESCIENCE. Part I. 

Through Superstition's boundless maze to range, 

And track her fleeting follies as they change. 

Some at the beam of Knowledge fade away, 

As Spirits vanish from approaching day ; 

Some ev n at Reason's voice forbear to fly, 

And still the mighty exorcist defy. 550 

Mark yon lone cot, whose many-crannied wall 
Admits the gale which else would work its fall ; 
Where through the rattling casement's shattered 

pane 
Trickles the dropping of unhealthy rain ; 
And from the mossy roof long reft of straw, 
The suns of Summer baleful vapours draw. 
Around it all is damp, and chill, and drear ; 
A boundless heath which Man is seldom near, 
Or if his feet should cross it, 'tis with fear. 



i 



Part I. PRESCIENCE. 43 

There not a single bough nor leaf is seen, 560 

Save one poor stunted willow's meagre green, 
Which rears a sapless trunk that cannot die, 
And clings to life with lifeless energy ; 
Stretched with grey arms which neither bud nor 

fade, 
Above the slimy pool they fain would shade. 

Hous'd in such houselessness, there dwells alone' 
Wasting the lees of age, a wither'd Crone. 
Sad wreck of life and limb left far behind, 
Forgotten, but in curses, by her kind ; 
Mateless, unfriended, unallied to Earth, 570 

Save by the wretchedness which mark'd her 

birth ; 

Knit to existence but by one dark tie, 
Grappling with Being but through misery. 



44 ' PRESCIENCE. Part J. 

The tongues which curse her would not wish her 

dead, 
They know not where to fix their hate instead ; 
The hand whose vengeance daily works her 

wrong, 
Stops short her lingering torture to prolong ; 
And for herself, her Memory's faded eye 
Sees but the moment which is passing by. 

Bent o'er her scanty hearth, the Beldame drains 
Heat long-forgotten in her bloodless veins ; &81 
Doubled within herself in grisly heap, 
A blighted harvest Death disdains to reap. 
A form unshapen, where nor arm, nor knee 
Are clearly fashion'd, yet all seem to be. 
The lank and bony hands whence touch is fled, 
Fain would support, but cannot rest her head ; 






Part I. PRESCIENCE. 45 

Her head for ever palsied; long ago 
Time there has shed and swept away his snow : 
Quench'd the dull eyeball, taught the front to bow 
And track'd his roughest pathway on her brow. 591 
Can it be life ! Or is there who would crave 
Such bitter respite from the must -be grave ! 
Who kin to other worlds, on this would tread, 
Or clasp a being, brother'd with the dead ! 
Yet the fond wisdom of the rustic pours 
Strange might of evil round that Beldame's doors. 
There the Deceiver frames his deeds of harm, 
And stamps his signet on her withered arm ; 
Traffics in ill, and from his willing prey, 600 

Drains the slow drops which sign her soul away 
There, while the body sleeps in deadly trance, 
The accursed Night-hags in their spirit dance ; 



46 PRESCIENCE. Part I. 

Steep'd in strange unguents ride the burden'd air, 

And mingle with the children of despair: 

Taste feasts forbidden, quaff the bowls of hell, 

And the dread chaunt of fiendish revel swell. 

Her's too the spells which o'er the waving grain 

Pour the sad deluge of autumnal rain ; 

The moon of harvest in her course obscure, 610 

And from their cave the prison'd tempests lure. 

Harm'd by her skill, the wasting cattle die, 

i 
And droop and languish through her evil eye. 

While the chill'd bridegroom from his tangled hair, 

Sues her the knots herself hath knit to tear ; 

Slow o'er the flame a waxen form she turns, 

" So burn his heartstrings, as this image burns ! 

" And as the molten drops fall last away, 

" So may his marrow waste, his bones decay I" 



Part I. PRESCIENCE. 4? 

Oh ! Tis not thus, nor by such feeble plan, 620 
The fell Deceiver works his way with Man. 
He rears no palace on th' unstable sand, 
He plants no sceptre in a nerveless hand. 
Not on the lips whence scarce the voice can 

flow, 
The sons of guile their lying truths bestow ; 
They lend no beryl to the powerless view, 
Nor gift the dumb with prophecy untrue. 
For mightier scenes their empire is design'd, 
The tangled maze of Passion and of Mind. 
Taught by their lore, Ambition springs to 
birth, 630 

And hurls his iron-braced arm o'er earth : 
Scowls the fierce triumph of his lifted eye, 
And chides the space which bars him from the sky. 



48 PRESCIENCE. Part I. 

Is it in Heaven his thoughts desire to dwell ? 
Look to his bosom — there 'tis only Hell ! 

Or if a gentler soul the fiend would win, 
He weaves the lavish blandishment of sin ; 
Fills high the cup with not unwilling tears : 
Sweetens with hope, and tempers it with fears : 
Braids dainty fetters round each yielding part, 640 
Bids prudence slumber, and awakes the heart. 
Then as in Pleasure's lap the trifler bows, 
Some wanton shears his prowess from his brows ; 
And veiling all the danger of her guile, 
Gains his " Eternal jewel" for a smile. 
So too the false one wooes the seeming wise, 
Who blink through nature with perverted eyes : 
Pours on their reason, pride's imagin'd blaze, 
The twilight chequer'd by a thousand rays ; 



Part J. PRESCIENCE. 49 

The meteor guide now hidden now displayed, 650 
Which cheats our sight pursuing through the shade : 
Sheds while unneeded all its useless fires, 
And when we covet most its light, expires. 



E 



PRESCIENCE. 



-v ~~ r -;■..... 



Argument of $art tfje Jtoontu 



Invocation to May — Dryden's Flower and Leaf — 
Influence of the Seasons on the Poet — Sketch of 
the Poetical character — The Imagination of the 
Poet perpetually operated upon by an Invisible 
Agency — The presages which he draws from na- 
tural objects — Connexion between Religious and 
Poetical Feeling — Eager anticipations of posthu- 
mous Fame — The Consolation derived from this 
Prescience during contemporary neglect — Slow 
Progress of Milton's Reputation — The Lover's 
Prescience — The Image of an Unknown Mistress 
which his Imagination forms — His search — His 
first Disappointment — The final Realization of his 
Hope — All Prescience but that of Imagination t° 
be deprecated — Prescience of the dying Patriot — 
Lord Russell — Advantages of Religion over Phi- 
losophy — The Christian Scheme of Prophecy — 
Adam — David — Isaiah — St. Paul — Conclusion. 



PART THE SECOND. 



MENTIS GRATISSIMUS ERROR. 



PRESCIENCE. 



PART THE SECOND. 

Come, jocund May ! at Nature's call arise, 
And tint with azure thine unclouded skies ; 
Shed the gay blossoms from thy fragrant wing, 
And pour around thee unreluctant Spring. 
Come, jocund May ! the secret founts unclose, 
Whence Love and Song in all its sweetness flows ; 
In gentler breasts awake the thrilling sigh, 
And fire with rapture the glad Poet's eye. 



58 



PRESCIENCE. Par* II. 



Haste thee ! For not fantastic is the power 
With which the Minstrel gifts thy rising hour: 10 
Nor light the spell which bids the Lover pay 
His meet observance to returning May. 
Haste thee ! though hush'd for aye the lips whose 

rhyme 
Drank the rich current of departer time; 
Though mute the shell which breath'd the powerful 

tone, 
Of olden music mellow'd by its own ; 
Still are there willing feet which long to trace 
The fairy May-Queen in her morning place : 
Still some aspiring eyes which hope to see 
The virgin bevy chaunting round their tree ; . 20 
Feed on the magic of that haunted scene, 
And claim the sober livery of green. 



Part II. PRESCIENCE. 59 

Nor wonder ye, in whose cold bosoms dwell 
No fancies rous'd by Poesie's sweet spell ; 
Ah ! wonder not if more enamoured eyes 
View all creation big with prodigies. 
Silent and chill to nature's throne ye steal, 
And dim the grandeur which ye cannot feel : 
Gauge ocean's fulness, mete the fields of sky, 
Then all the glory of her works deny. 30 

In vain to you her mighty book is spread, 
Its sense is hidden, though its signs be read. 
In vain your priests from morn till eve divine, 
No spark ethereal rests upon their shrine : 
The fabled Baal whom their vows obey, 
Babbles, or sleeps, or journeys on his way. 

Not so the gifted child to whom belong 
The holy love, the thirst unquenched of song : 



60 PRESCIENCE. Part II. 

To whom the rarer boons by Heaven assigned, 
The glow, the brightness, and the flame of mind. 40 
There nature's hand its choicest seeds has shed, 
But fenc'd not in the garden which it spread : 
There, with its own luxuriance quick, the soil 
Spurns the restraint, outruns the spur of toil : 
And in despite of very riches, breeds 
A waste of fatness with a maze of weeds. 
Mingled with herbs of " mickle grace and power" 
Springs many a fading, many, a baleful flower ; 
And the tall forest's stately boughs between 
The thriftless ivy intertwines her green. 50 

Born not for that which is, but that which seems, 
The Poet floats on Passion's varying streams ; 
Pleas'd with the waves which buffet round his brow, 
Now plunged in anguish, buoyed to rapture now. 



Part II. PRESCIENCE. 61 



So lost in dreams insufferably bright, 

His eye is "dazzled" by " excess of light ;'' 

So fed with longings for a world unknown, 

He spurns the gross material of his own. 

All life, all soul, yet gasping still for more, 

Thrill'd with o'er-wrought existence to each pore ; 60 

Sport to the seasons, fashion'd by the skies, 

As they are fair or foul, he smiles or sighs. 

Still faster fleeting as his steps pursue, 

He keeps the form of happiness in view ; 

So far, his onset dares not be delay'd, 

So near he pants already on her shade ; 

Till as one airy nothing glides away, 

He starts a second, and renews the play. 

See him through nature's boundless circle range, 
He marks some presage in each common change : 70 



62 PRESCIENCE. Part II. 

Adds to her meanest works a heightened grace, 

And casts the mighty glamour o'er her face. 

Not e'en the smallest spangle in the sky, 

But teems with import to the Poet's eye ; 

No blossom stirs beneath the summer gale, 

But lends some image to the Poet's tale. 

Earth, Ocean, Air, the Universe his own, 

Each breathes a music framed for him alone ; 

As if the living and the lifeless throng 

Were formed to feed the holy source of song. 80 

Nor light the purpose for which heaven designed 
These finely measured harmonies of Mind ; 
Such lavish treasure was not idly shed 
To lurk unseen and useless in its bed. 
He feels the voice which others dimly hear, 
And God is ever present to his ear ; 



Part II. PRESCIENCE. 63 

The rocking earth, the whirlwind's rushing din, 

Accord with gentler whispers from within. 

His search profanes not the forbidden pale, 

But marks the Mighty e'en within his veil: 90 

Sees in the glass his darken'd form display'd, 

And knows the Maker from the things he made. 

Prophet of nature, to his trusting eye, 

Pass'd is the wilderness* the promise nigh, 

Where-e'er their knees the thankless many bow, 

He pours to Truth his unremitting vow : 

Though long the voyage, though the waste be dark> 

Unceasing Glory shadows o'er his ark. 

So the bright Sun in his eternal race, 

Surveys the fathomless abyss of space ; 100 

Creation's farthest bounds his pomp supply, 

And Heaven and Earth are gathered to his eye, 



64 PRESCIENCE. Part II. 

Yet net his triumph to adorn alone, 
Such waste fertility is round him thrown ; 
He bids the streams of life and being flow, 
And only drinks the virtue to bestow. 

Oh ! For that holy hope, that keen desire, 
Which fans the slumbering spark of Minstrel fire ; 
Breathes to his soul the rich perfume of fame, 
And wafts the fragrance of a deathless name ! 110 
Oh ! for that moment when no more repressed 
The master Spirit rages in his breast : 
When from their source the bright creations rise, 
And thought outruns each image it supplies. 
When on the tablet of enraptured Mind, 
Each form is shadow'd out, but not defin'd ; 
And as the wildly blended colours flow, 
O'er their first tints the lights of fancy glow. 



Part II. PRESCIENCE. 65 

'Tis then the mighty workman can combine 

These jarring seeds in unconfus'd design ; 120 

His rapid eye the seeming waste surveys, 

And marks the plan which regulates the maze ; 

Awakes a world where Heaven and Earth were blent, 

And bars the waters from the firmament. 

Ere yet its race his chariot has begun, 

The course is pass'd, the goal of glory won : 

Ere yet the quarry its rude mass bestows, 

A God beneath the breathing marble glows. 

Swift to his lips unbidden numbers throng, 

And inspiration rushes on his song ; 130 

Then coming ages pass before his eyes, 

And dreams of long futurity arise ; 

Tongues yet unborn his living strain rehearse, 

And climes unthought of echo with his verse ; 



66 PRESCIENCE. Part II. 

He sees the laurel which entwines his bust, 
He marks the pomp which consecrates his dust ; 
Shakes off the dimness which obscures him now, 
And feels the future glory bind his brow. 

Yes ! there is solace for those hearts which brood, 
Chill' d by the frost of their own solitude ; 140 

Which nurse the festering wound of noble pride, 
And sicken with the pangs of hope denied. 
For them the Prescient Spirit undismayed, 
Shines in the brightness which itself has made ; 
Springs o'er the barrier Time would idly frame, 
And revels in anticipated fame. 
Lo ! He who pluck* d with no unhallow'd hand, 
The Seraph's flame to light his daring brand ; 
Who quaff'd the waters which in Eden flow, 
And sang " things unattempted yet" below; 150 



Part II. PRESCIENCE. 67 

Though now for ever round him fair Renown 
Girds the bright frontlet of her starry crown ; 
And twines his crisped locks of golden hair, 
With flowers which everlasting gardens bear, 
Immortal amaranth, and deathless bay, 
Dropping celestial dews, and free from all decay : 
It was not so, when cheerless and alone, 
He lingered onwards through a path unknown ; 
Without one smile to lure, one hand to guide, 
And all the sweetness of repose denied. 160 

Offence was there, and misbecoming Toil, 
Who spoil'd, nor knew the richness of the spoil ; 
And canker'd Envy, and the withering eye, 
Which saw him fall 'mid robbers, yet pass'd by. 
Still when his bonds the giant Spirit broke, 
And all the fury of his song awoke ; 



68 PRESCIENCE. Part II. 

When mute obedience on his lips would dwell, 

And catch the holy droppings as they fell ; 

He trod not blindly, though his bodily eye 

Was blank, and nature's visual fountain dry; I/O 

He trod not hopeless, though his evil days 

Lent the scant meed of half-unwilling praise : 

But inly conscious of his future name, 

Outstripp'd the march of lazy-pacing Fame : 

Wooed not the coy and still reluctant maid, 

But nobly daring, snatch' d the unproffer'd braid. 

Taught the bright fabric of his song to climb, 

Liv'd not for life, but for all coming time ; 

Bask'd in the glories of a cloudless sky, 

And drank the foretaste of Eternity. ISO 

Nor these alone, but gentler hopes belong 
To the soft fancy-nurtur'd child of Song : 



Part II. PRESCIENCE, 69 

And mid the laurel's everlasting bower, 
Love's wanton fingers twine a lighter flower. 
Ah ! Who has ever glow'd with minstrel flame, 
Whom Love neglected for himself to claim ! 
Ah ! where the Lover who has never paid 
His secret homage in the Muse's shade ; 

There Fancy paints to his enamour'd gaze, 
Visions of happiness in coming days ; 190 

Pourtrays some image of the yet unknown, 
And shews the Spirit destin'd for his own ; 
Half veils and half reveals her to his sight, 
And pours o'er all a dimly shadow'd light. 
Till in his own creation rapt, the boy 
Clasps with fond arms his unsubstantial joy ; 
Hangs o'er the imagin'd form himself has made. 
And gives unreal substance to a shade* 



70 PRESCIENCE. Part II. 

Pass'd is the spell, the talisman unbound ! 
His air-built fabric shattered to the ground ! 200 
The fairy landscape ravish'd from his eyes ! 
The star of promise set beneath its skies ! 
Ah ! what the pause of being can supply, 
What fill his craving bosom's vacancy ! 
Where may the pilgrim his lone steps delay, 
To slake the fever of his thirsty way ! 
Springs but a single fountain in the waste, 
And is that one forbidden to his taste ! 
Farewell the hopes which from Ambition flow, 
Farewell the promise life and youth bestow : 210 
Joy idly breathes her easy hearted strain, 
And reeling Pleasure beckons him in vain ; 
The profFer'd goblet to his lip is dry, 
And Beauty palls upon his wearied eye ; 



Part II. PRESCIENCE. 71 

Vain all the loveliness which others wear, 
Till the One statue of his hope is there ! 

Yet o'er his search some hand unseen presides ; 
Weans from the false ones, to the real guides ; 
From his dim eye with favoring power dispels 
The mist which all diviner vision quells ; 220 

Shadows the past, the forward pathway shows, 
And gifts of planetary might bestows ; 
The glass whose surface but for One is clear, 
The ring which presses when the lov'd is near. 

Soon as her first light whisper steals around, 
His ready ear acknowledges the sound ; 
Deems it sweet music other days have known, 
And catches ere it falls the coming tone ; 
So lost, yet so familiar and so dear, 
He thinks 'twas always present to his ear. 230 



72 PRESCIENCE. Part II. 

Haply 'twas warbled ere condemn'd to earth, 

His Spirit gloried in its purer birth ; 

And echoes now its un forgotten strain, 

To lure him upwards to his Heaven again. 

He views an image where the features seem 

Like the vague memory of a scatter'd dream ; 

Or as the visage of a friend, whom time 

Has render'd strange, with grief, or toil, or clime ; 

So like we almost greet him by his name, 

Yet so unlike, we doubt it is the same ; 240 

And wipe away the film, and with surprise 

Scarce dare to trust the gladness of our eyes. 

It is the single star, whose ceaseless ray 

Has never dimm'd its blaze in ocean spray ; 

The pilot beam, which steady light supplies, 

The Cynosure of never-clouded skies. 



Part If. PRESCIENCE. 73 

It is the holy dream by Fancy bred ; 
The hope on which his solitude has fed; 
The kindred nature whom his bosom claim'd ; 
The One for whom he felt his being framed. 250 

Such be the Prescience Heaven to me imparts ! 
I ask no other knowledge but the heart's. 
Oh ! still may Fate her blazon'd page conceal, 
Still rest the volume with unbroken seal ! 
Pleas'd if the coming, but reflect the past, 
No doubtful glance on future hours I cast ; 
No ghosts of buried happiness deplore, 
Nor make the present less by seeking more. 
Whate'er to-morrow on its wings convey, 
Content I taste the blessing of to-day ; 260 

As morn awakes no twilight shadows see, 
Nor cloud the sunshine with the storm to be. 



74 PRESCIENCE. Part II. 

Whate'er Eternity's unchang'd design, 
Each fleeting vision of the heart is mine ; 
Mine more than aught but Fancy can supply, 
Mine all the future may perhaps deny ; 
Dreams of the soul which all its powers employ, 
And hope which seems reality of joy. 
Enamour'd of delusion I survey 
The quiet bye path of life's private way ; 270 

There in the lap of gentle Honour lie, 
There drink the fragrance of Affection's sigh ; 
There Love and Song around my being twine, 
The Muses not unwilling, Psyche mine. 

And as the lamp of manhood waxes dim, 
And age is quivering in each feeble limb ; 
When link by link life's chain is in decay, 
And the last mourner murmurs at his stay ; 



Part H. PRESCIENCE. 75 

When scarce a hand remains to smooth his brow, 

And all that once was Love is Memory now ; 280 

Mine be that eye which shrinks not if it cast 

One backward look of fondness to the past ; 

And when o'er shadowy years its glance has run, 

Dares humbly raise it to the future Sun. 

If on the mirror one foul speck remain 

Oh ! be there tears to wash away the stain ; 

If on its surface shine one brighter spot, 

Oh ! may no cloud its holy lustre blot ! 

Sated with life, yet not with sweetness cloy'd, 

Its gifts nor coveted, nor unenjoy'd ; 290 

Not unremember'd, yet not idly known, 

May no ungentle hand deface my stone. 

Is there no hope, no certainty, to cheer 
The dying Patriot in his hour of fear ! 



76 PRESCIENCE. Part II. 

It is not fear ; no thought of His can fall 

On Time for whom Eternity is all. 

His the firm step, the front which cannot bow, 

And Honour's signet blazon'd on his brow ; 

The cheek unblanch'd, the heaven-uplifted eye, 

Which speaks how great the triumph so to die. 300 

Oh ! bitterer far the single tear which flows 

To meet the more than Roman Matron's woes : 

One look to Love, to Virtue one they cast, 

Then all the bitterness of Death is past ! 

How slowly creeps each moment which delays 

The willing Victim from his meed of praise ! 

The lingering death-march to his eager eyes 

Seems the glad pomp of glorious Sacrifice ; 

His fetter'd limbs fresh wreaths of conquest braid, 

And the green Myrtle twines the lifted blade : 310 



Part II. PRESCIENCE. 77 

He sees the axe a hallow'd weapon shine, 

The block is Freedom's consecrated shrine : 

Each throb convulsive which to life belongs 

Shall rouse his slumbering country to her wrongs ; 

Each holy drop which trickles from his veins 

Shall cleanse the throne a guilty Monarch stains. 

Prophetic visions float before his gaze, 

Rich with the promise of unclouded days ; 

He grasps the prize his martyrdom has won, 

And feels the work of Liberty begun. 320 

Mute is the scepter'd jester ; rent the cowl 

Which veil'd the sterner Tyrant's bigot scowl ! 

Rest, injur'd Spirit, in thy patriot urn, 

When Tarquin flies it is not to return ! 

How idle all her sophists would supply, 
It is not Reason teaches how to die ! 



78 PRESCIENCE. Part II. 

No ! 'tis the portion of a mightier plan, 

Eternal Faith ! without thee what were man ! 

Prescient by thee our first great Sire beheld 

How vast the love 'gainst which he had rebell'd; 330 

Gave birth to death, yet deem'd it sweet to die, 

And triumph'd o'er his own captivity : 

Dwelt on the promise with delighted eyes, 

And saw another, richer Eden rise. 

By thee, the monarch master of the song 

Watch'd the dark tide of ages roll along ; 

Till 'mid the shadows of succeeding days 

His East was brighten'd by no doubtful rays ; 

And in the latest glories of his line 

The mortal nature mingled with divine. 340 

By thee the Prophet drank the balm which flows 

From heavenly Sharon's everlasting Rose ; 



Part II. PRESCIENCE. 79 

Saw the glad feet which o'er his Sion trod, 
And whisper'd comfort to the lov'd of God. 

So, when his cross the Gentile teacher bore 
And breath'd out slaughter 'gainst his Lord no more ; 
Full on his ear prophetic accents rung, 
And round his path celestial radiance hung. 
The voice which checked him in his mid career, 
And dried the thirsty threatening of his spear ; 350 
The light which made his eye in darkness roll, 
But rous'd the self-dimm'd vision of his soul. 
Such were the guides which lent him holy skill 
Where fabled Mars frowns proudly from his hill : 
There, breathing all the heaven his soul believ'd, 
He taught the wise their wisdom was deceiv'd, 
From rites perverted rais'd the Pagan knee, 
And whom they blindly worshipp'd bade them see. 



SO PRESCIENCE. Part II. 

Pierc'd the reluctant gloom of Stoic pride, 
And tore his robe of heartlessness aside ; 360 

From his lov'd garden wean'd the less severe, 
Strengthened the Sage's hope, and calm'd tfye 
Woman's fear. 
Nor less when Rome her rod of fierceness shook, 
And his pale followers their Lord forsook ; 
When all the labour of his Faith was done, 
Fought the good fight, the cause of trial run ; 
His heavenward thoughts their sainted vigil kept 
While yet ungather'd to the just who slept : 
And wasting slow beneath the Tyrant's eye 
His Spirit joy'd to feel its freedom nigh. 370 

Then to his eager Prescience was display'd 
The crown for ever by his God uplaid ; 
The immortal guerdon heavenly hands prepare, 
The rapture all who love his ways shall share ; 



Part 11. PRESCIENCE. 81 

Vain to such hope the terrors Man can bring, 
Where is thy victory, Grave! where, Death, thy 
sting ! 
Here then our wisdom centers, to confess 
What is, is certain, what to come, a guess. 
If such be life, 'twere strange if, after all, 
No true conjecture to our lot should fall; 380 

If blindly choosing in our Fate's despite, 
We never chanc'd to stumble on the right. 
But would we fathom Nature's mystic plan, 
We change our state, and would be more than Man. 
All other knowledge but obscurely flows, 
There is but One, unknown himself, who knows. 
The golden chain which links us to his throne 
Obeys his grasp and disregards our own : 
His touch Creation from its base can throw, 
Vain all our force to draw Him down below. 390 
G 



82 PRESCIENCE. Part II. 

So would our feeble Reason gain the skies, 
The God who frarn'd must teach it how to rise. 
Touch'd by his Spirit, purer hearts aspire, 
Nor steal but win some sparks of heavenly fire. 
Glow with the knowledge earth could ne'er create, 
And wisely yielding seem to govern Fate. 396 



NOTES 

ON PART THE FIRST. 



NOTES. 



9. The slow months. 
The "tardi menses" (Georgic 1.32), are the 
summer months ; because, as the commentators 
gravely observe, although the months are not 
slower in reality, still as the days are longer, they 
seem to be so. 

45. Celestial beams have fired the closing eye, 

And the voice peaVd with strains of prophecy. 

An opinion that the Soul at the approach of 

death is gifted with prophetical powers, was 



OS NOTES. 

very generally entertained by the Greek Philoso- 
phers. Plato represents his master as asserting 
it at the time in which he stood at the bar of 
the Athenians with a certainty of his fate. 

cc xctTculrr}<piiFafj,evoi pou* xou yap sifti evruvfa ev cp 

If we cannot allow the Sage full credit for 
positive/ore&rcowZedge of the civil dissensions and 
calamities which he continues to predict, the 
events which actually occurred after his death 
bore ample testimony to his extraordinary degree 
of foresight. 

47. Then too, such sounds from dying lips escape, 

As if they commurid with some viewless shape. 

It has frequently occurred to those whose duty 

it has been to attend the dying, and watch the 



NOTES. 87 

progress of life as it gradually quits the body, to 
observe these seeming communications with in- 
visible beings — broken and interrupted frag- 
ments of dialogue — replies to questions not pro- 
posed by any by-stander, and which often relate 
to past circumstances of earlier life, now almost 
forgotten — mention of the names of those en- 
deared to remembrance, but long since dead — 
and a certain " method'* in all these wanderings 
of the Spirit, which would give rise to much 
curious speculation. — Those who have attended 
a death-bed as ministers of consolation cannot 
but have remarked these facts. 

,76. Some cloud scarce bigger than the human hand. 

The cloud which the servant of Elijah saw 

from Mount Carmel, arising " out of the sea, 

like a man's hand,'' (I. Kings, xviii. 44,) has 



88 NOTES. 

been before made use of by Mr. Scott, in Don 
Roderick, 

39. Then raised to heaven a hand unused to pray, 
And ask'd to perish in the face of day. 

Iliad, xvii. 647- 
" Lord of earth and air ! 
" Oh King ! Oh Father ! hear my humble pra/r : 
" Dispel this cloud, the light of Heaven restore ; 
" Give me to see, and Ajax asks no more, 
" If Greece must perish, we thy will obey, 

" But let us perish in the face of day." Pope. 

■ 
191. Deem nothing found, while aught remains 

unknown. 
Nil actum credens dum quid superesset agendum. 

Lucan, II. 657- 

193. While this too little, that too much you call, 
And rail at Heaven unless it give you all. 



NOTES. S9 

" Call imperfection what thou fanciest such, 
" Say here he gives too little, there too much." 
Essay on Man, Ep. I. 115. 

198. Go then, and bow with Egypt' s juggling Priest. 
In the opening lines of the XVth Satire, 
Juvenal has ridiculed the superstition of the 
Egyptians with his accustom'd point and 
vigour. 

Quis nescit, Volusi Bithynice, qualia demens 
iEgyptus portent a colat ? Crocodilon adorat 
Pars haec : ilia pavet saturam serpentibus Ibim. 
Effigies sacri nitet aurea Cercopitheci, 
Dimidio magicae resonant ubi Memnone chordae, 
At.que vet us Thebae centum jacet obruta portis. 
Illic caeruleos, hie piscem numinis, illic 
Oppida tot a canem venerantur, nemo Dianam. 
Porrum et cjefe nefas violare ac frangere morsu. 



90 NOTES. 

O sanctas gentes, quibus haec nascuntur in hortis 
Numina ! 

237- Or tempt tJie trespass of that secret wave, 
Where Dian and her huntress virgins lave ! 
The reader may refer to the Metamorphoses 
of Ovid, for the punishment of the ancient Ac- 
tseon. Most of the rural crimes which would 
incur vengeance, are enumerated by the same 
poet in the prayer to Pales. — He particularly 
alludes to two which are here made use of : 
Nee Dryadas, nee nos videamus labra Dianse, 
Nee Faunum medio cum premit arva die ! 
Fasti. IV. 761. 

250. Hope's certain mirror, visions sprung from Jove, 

AXX^ Otys 8>J TlVOt [AOLVTIV SpSlOfASV >5 ISpYjdy 

H koli ovsipoiToXoVy xui yap r'owp sx. Atog Sf JV. 

Iliad. A. 62. 



NOTES. 91 

Apuleius has written a tract upon the Daemon 
of Socrates, from which no further information 
can be derived than that Apuleius himself be- 
lieved in it, and that not being able to account 
for the " certain voice," which restrained the 
Sage, he was determined to increase the mystery 
in which he found it involved. Whether, as Plu- 
tarch tells us, it was " a fit of sneezing," or, as 
Plato would have us believe, " a most substan- 
tial whisper/' it would be presumptuous in a mo- 
dern to determine. According to the doctrines 
of the latter philosopher, all existences which 
possess a rational soul, are divided into three 
classes, Gods, Daemons, and Men, respectively 
inhabiting the heaven, the air, and the earth ; 
although neither the limits of their powers, nor 
their abode appear very satisfactorily defined.— 
St. Augustin (de Civ. Dei, Lib. 8, cap, 14) is 



92 NOTES. 

very angry with Apuleius for having degraded 
the Monitor of Socrates from the rank of a God 
to that of a Daemon, and accuses him of being so 
much ashamed of his own offence that he was 
obliged to prefix to his tract, the title " de Deo," 
rather than " de Daemone Socratis." It would 
be curious to ascertain how far the belief of the 
venerable father extended to either. 

Plato, in that most exquisite of all his dia- 
logues, the Crito, relates this dream of Socrates, 
which happened three nights before his death. 
Grito arrives early in the morning to announce a 
report of the approach of the sacred vessel from 
Delos, whose arrival was to be the signal of his ex- 
ecution. Socrates disbelieves this report, on the 
authority of a dream, in which a woman of a 
lovely form and pleasing aspect, stood by his 
couch, and folding her white robe around her, 



NOTES. 93 

called to him by name, and addressed him in a 
line from Homer : 

HfJLCtTl XSV TplTOCTOO <l>9jav epi§oo\ov 1X010. 

II. I. 368. 

A line used by Achilles in answer to the am- 
bassadors whom Agamemnon had sent for pur- 
poses of conciliation, " that when he set sail, if 
Neptune afforded him a fair voyage, he should 
arrive at his native Pthia, the seat of fertility, on 
the third day." 

Notwithstanding the beautiful application 
which Socrates had made of the passage, that his 
Spirit would not return to the Heaven from 
which it first sprung, till the third day, the 
stupid ingenuity of. a French commentator has 
contrived to chill all the " longing after immorta- 
lity'' which he expresses, by understanding <f>5/a 
as the grave, the place of corruption, and perverse- 
ly deducing its etymology from <£>$/«;, corrumpo. 



94 NOTES. 

255. Or lead me, lead me, to Aricia's glade, &c. 

For a description of the Arician valley and the 
fountain of Egeria, the reader cannot be better 
referred than to the story of Numa and the 
Anciiia which Ovid has so finely told in the third 
book of his Fasti. The beautiful lines in the 
third Satire of Juvenal, which are here imitated, 
must be in every one's recollection. 

273. Still to thy wave shall flow the purpling wine, 
Horace has vowed a similar tribute to the 
fountain of Blandusia. 

278. The pious monarch of the maple throne ; 

Prodit, et en soli medius consedit acerno 

288. The chaste Athenian's secret grave. 
The grave of Hippolytus was supposed to be 
in the Arician valley, and the circumstances 



NOTES. 95 

attending his death will readily account for the 
exclusion of horses from a spot dedicated to his 
memory : 

Hie jacet Hippolytus, furiis direptu3 equorum, 
Unde nemus nullis illud initur equis. 

Fast. III. 265. 
The whole story is related by Virgil, jEn. VII. 
760. 

29 1 . Sadly , and slow, my curious steps explore 
The sounding depths of Cumce's desert shore. 
It would be superfluous to quote all the pas- 
sages which have been adapted from the sixth book 
of Virgil in regard to the Cumaean Sibyl. 

324. Seem'd o'er the world, Colossus- like, to stride. 
" He doth bestride the narrow world 
" Like a Colossus." Julius Ccesar. 



96 NOTES. 

338. Herald of doom, his Horoscope, arise. 
Among astrologers the Horoscope is the eastern 
and most important hinge (cardo) of the quadrate, 
in casting a nativity : 
Tertius sequali pollens in parte, nitentem 
Qui tenet exortum, quo primumsydera surgunt, 
Unde dies redit, et tempus describit in horas, 
Hie inter Graias Horoscopos editur urbes, 
Nee capit externum proprio quia nomine gaudet; 
Hie tenet arbitrium vitae, atque hie regula mo- 
rum est, 
Fortunamque dabit rebus, ducetque per artes. 

Manilius, II. S25. 

S43. Thus when their steel the Band of Brothers 
drew, 
" We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.'* 

Henry V. 



NOTES. 97 

Virgil in the well-known passage (Georg. I. 
468), in common with all the other courtly bards 
of the time of Augustus, ascribes these pheno- 
mena to other causes. It is not the first time 
that the history of Brutus has led to two dissimilar 
conclusions. In the Museum at Florence, there 
was an unfinished bust of Brutus, by Michael 
Angelo, under which a Frenchman had written 
these two lines : 

" Dum Bruti effigiem sculptor de marmore ducit, 
M In mentem sceleris venit, et abstinuit." 
Lord Sandwich's English spirit waged war 
against so despotic an inscription, and he sub- 
stituted, 
"Brutum effecisset sculptor, sed mente recursat 
"Tanta viri Virtus, sistit et abstinuit. 

372. Tw but the burthen of the twilight gale. 
The Greek poets are fond of the low rustling 
H 



98 NOTES. 

breeze of early morning. The Scholiast on Apol- 
lonius Rhodius, IV. 110, has described it fully : 

Ci AxX uv P 0V — T0V KUl P 0V T0V TrArjcnov r^§ Yjfiepotg 

" WKBp TO XUhOVfLSVOV \UX0fCO$ y 7T€pl yap TOV TOIQVTOV 

<c xoupov ai ctvpoti 7rveovo~iv* 

" AvpYj V 6X 770TOLfJl,0V ^UJfp>J 7TS\6l yOQ$eV 7Tpo" 

369. And in each pause of thought he traced the 
page 
Rich with the honey of Athena's Sage. 
There is perhaps no authority by which it can 
be determined that Brutus was reading Plato at 
the time of the appearance of his evil genius ; 
but Cato, his father-in-law, certainly did so under 
the same circumstances. 

408. HaiVd the slow rising of the Mother-Night. 
The night of the winter solstice was called by 



NOTES. 99 

our Northern ancestors " Mother-Night," as they 
reckoned the beginning of their year from it. 

419. Far off in Hela's gulph of anguish lie, fyc. 
Nielheim or the Hell of the Scandinavian 
Mythology, was " a place consisting of nine 
" worlds, reserved for those that died of disease or 
" old age. Hela or Death there exercised her de- 
" spotic power. Her palace was Anguish, her table 
" famine, her waiters were Expectation and De- 
" lay, the threshold of her door was Precipice, her 
" bed Leanness. She was livid and ghastly pale, 
" and her very looks inspired horror." — Mallet, I. 
102. 

430. The voice which echoed from Upsala's stone. 

The most celebrated temple of the Northern 
nations was at Upsala, in Sweden {Mallei, I. 



100 NOTES, 

108). It was as famous for its oracle as its 
sacrifices (122). The Goddess Frigga was 
usually served by Kings' daughters, whom they 
called Prophetesses and Goddesses- These pro- 
nounced oracles, devoted themselves to perpetual 
virginity, and kept up the sacred fire in her 
temple. 

435. The rhymes deep graven on her shrine, which 

run 

Their circled course averted from the sun. 

" The Runic rhymes were written either from 

right to left, or from top to bottom, or in form 

of a circle, or contrary to the course of the sun.'' 

• Mallet, 1. 126. 

437. By Him. the Terrible, &e. 
Some of the titles of Odin, in the Edda, are 



NOTES. 101 

" the Terrible and Severe God, the Father of 
" Slaughter, the God that carrieth desolation and 
"fire, the Active and Roaring Deity, he who 
" giveth victory, and riviveth courage in the con- 
" flict, who nameth those that are to be slain." 
The third principal Deity was Thor, who always 
carried a mace, which as often as he discharged, 
it returned back again of itself. The second was 
Frea, the wife of Odin. 

447» Not for the Virgin's search, Hialmar^s bane. 

The Incantation of Hervor has already been 
translated into English verse, and the sword 
Tirfing, the workmanship of dwarfs, the bane of 
Hialmar, is familiar to all readers of poetry. 
The Northern nations believed that the tombs of 
their Heroes emitted a kind of lambent flame, 



102 NOTES. 

which was always visible by night, and served to 
guard the ashes of the dead. They called it 
* Hauga Elldr, 5 ' or "the Sepulchral fire," 

452. And the red streamer crowns the dragon prow. 
The Northern Kings sometimes constructed 
vessels of an enormous size for their maritime 
expeditions. The chronicles mention one of 
Harold Harsagre, with great admiration, a long 
ship under the name of the Dragon. Mallet, 219. 

467. But would you view the Druid's fane aright, 
Choose not the stilly season of " Moonlight" 
Mr. Scott's beautiful description of Melrose 
Abbey, by the " pale moonlight," has been too 
often read and admired to need quotation here. 
The Druid's circle at Stonehenge was visited by 
the author of these lines, in which its portrait is 



NOTES. 103 

attempted, on a night which will always be fresh 
in his memory, and he has perhaps given but a 
faint copy of the feelings which were excited by 
its wild magnificence. 

493. Few, yet how many ! never to be told, 

Aright by man, or numbered in their fold. 

So Sydney in his Sonnet on the Wonders of 
England : 

" Near Wilton sweet huge heaps of stone are 
found, 

" But so confus'd that neither any eye 

* Can count them just, nor Reason reason try 
" What force brought them to so unlikely 
ground/' 

The secret of counting them appears to lie in 
a careful observation of the separate circles. 



104 NOTES. 

495. Work, as the peasant fondly frames his tale, 
Of Him, the wizard of Cayr-Merdin' s vale. 
GlauceanJ Britomart in " The Faerie Queen*' 
visit Cayr-Merdin when they wish to consult 
Merlin : 

" Forthwith themselves disguising both in strange 
" And base attire, that none might them bewray, 
"To Maridunum, that is now by change 
" Of name Cayr-Merdin call'dj they took their way. 
" There the wise Merlin whilom wont they say 
" To make his wonne low under neathe the ground 
" In a deep delve far from the view of day, 
" That of no living wight he mote be found, 
"When so He counsell'd with his Sprights 
encompass'd round." 

Book III, Canto 3, Stanza 7- 
Neither Bede, nor William of Malms bury, nor 
indeed any of the earlier English Historians, 



NOTES, 105 

mention Stonehengec It is to Giraldus Cam- 
brensis that we are first indebted for the account 
of Merlin's connection with it. 

" There was in Ireland in ancient times a pile 
" of stones worthy admiration, called the Giant's 
" Dance, because Giants from the remotest part 
" of Africa brought them into Ireland, and in the 
" plains of Kildare, not far from the castle of the 
" Naase, as well by force of art as strength, mira- 
" culousiy set them up. These stones Aurelius 
" Ambrosius, King of the Britains, procured Mer- 
" lin, by supernatural means, to bring from Ireland 
" into Britain, that he might leave some famous 
" monument of so great a treason to after ages, in 
" the same order and art as they stood formerly, 
" set them up where the flower of the British na- 
" tion fell by the cut-throat practice of the Saxons, 
" and where, under pretence of peace, the ill-se- 



106 NOTES. 

" cured youth of the kingdom by murderous 
U design were slain." — De admirabilibus Hibernia, 
c. 18. 

The treachery of Hengist, to which Giraldus 
alludes, is related at length in the sixth book of 
Geoffry of Monmouth. 

Rainulph, the Monk of Chester, speaking of 
Aurelius Ambrosius, says, according to Sir John 
Trevisa's translation : 

" His brother, Uther Pendragon, by help of 
" Merlin the Prophet, brought Choream Gigan- 
" turn (in Welsh i Choir Gaur'), that is. Stone- 
" henge, out of Ireland." — Polycronicori, Lib. V. 

Geoffry of Monmouth informs us how Merlin 
brought them after the victory of Uther Pendra- 
gon over the Irish. " Having found the struc- 
" ture, from joy they fell into admiration, and 
rt standing all of them at gaze round about it. 



NOTES. 107 

" Merlin draws near, and thus bespeaks them : 
" ' Use now your utmost strength, young men, 
" that in taking away these stones, you may dis- 
" cover whether art to strength, or strength gives 

* place to art. 1 At his command, therefore, they 
" bring down several sorts of engines, and address 
" themselves to pulling it down; some ropes, 
" some cables, some had made ladders ready, that 
" what they so much desired might be effected ; 
" but in no wise able to effect their purpose. All 
" of them tried ; Merlin breaks out into laughter, 
" and provides his engines : lastly, when he had 
" got all things in a readiness, hardly to be be- 
"' lieved it is, with what facility he took them down. 
" Being taken down he caused them to be carried 
"to the ships and embarked, and so with joy they 

* began their return towards Britain." 



108 NOTES. 

505. Such have they stood, till dim Tradition's eye 
Looks vainly hack on their obscurity. 
So Drayton. 
" Dull heap that thus thy head above the rest 

dost rear, 
" Precisely yet not know'st who first did place 

thee here, 
" But tray tor basely turn'd to Merlin's art dost 

" And with his magic dost thy makers truth 
bely." 

Poly Olhion 9 Canto III. 
It would be difficult to decide upon the respec- 
tive pretensions of the Druids, the Romans, and 
the Danes, to the foundation of Stone Henge. 
The reader who is fond of antiquarian contro- 
versy will find ample food for his taste in the 



. 



NOTES. 109 

writings of Inigo Jones and Stukeley on this 
subject. 

566*. Housed in such houselessness, there dwells alone, 
Wasting the lees of age, a wither d Crone. 

In a curious tract entitled " Round about our 
Coal Eire," the following description of a witch 
occurs. " A witch, according to my nurse's ac- 
" count, must be a hagged old woman, living in 
" a little rotten cottage, under a hill, by a wood 
V side, and must be frequently spinning at the 
" door. She must have a black cat, two or three 
" broom-sticks, an imp or two, and two or three 
" diabolical teats to suckle her imps. She must 
" be of so dry a nature, that if you fling her into 
" a river, she will not sink. So hard is her fate, 
" that, if she is to undergo the trial, if she does 



110 NOTES. 

" not drown she must be burnt, as many have 
" been within the memory of man." 

593. Such bitter respite from the must-be grave. 
" — those may-be years thou hast to live." 
Dryden. The Hind and the Panther. 

614. While the chilVd bridegroom from his tangled 
hair, 
Sues her the knots herself has knit to tear. 
The chilling power of the •* Elf Locks" is a 
well-known superstition. Lord Bacon speaks 
thus of an 

" Experiment solitary touching maleficiating." 

" In Zant it is very ordinary to make men 

" impotent to accompany with their wives. The 

" like is practised in Gascon y, where it is called 

" ' Nouer l'Eguillette.- It is practised always 



NOTES. Ill 

" upon the wedding-day, and in Zant the mothers 
" themselves do it by way of prevention ; because 
" thereby they hinder other charms, and can undo 
" their own. It is a thing the civil law takes cog- 
" nizance of, and therefore is of no light regard." 
Century of Inventions, IX. 888. 

616. Slow o'er the flame a waxen form she turns. 
King James in his Daemonology (II. 5), as- 
sures us that " the Devil teaches how to make 
" pictures of wax and clay, that by roasting there - 
" of, the persons that they bear the name of may be 
" continually melted or dryed away by continual 
" sickness." — For the general belief in the evil 
power of these images there unfortunately exist 
still more authentic documents. The trial of the 
Paisley witches who conspired in this way against 
Sir George Maxwell is reported by Glanville, and 



112 NOTES. 

the spot on which they were burnt is still pointed 
out in the park of the Maxwell family, at Pol- 
lock, in Renfrewshire. 

Hall in his Chronicles has related in a manner 
somewhat curious, the conspiracy of Eleanor 
Cobham* Dutchess of Gloucester, and her asso- 
ciates against Henry VI. in which similar means 
were pretended to be employed. 

" But venime will once breake oute, and in- 
" warde grudge will sone appeare, which was this 
" yere to all men apparaunt ; for divers secrete at- 
" temptes were advaunced forward this season, 
" against the noble Duke Humfrey of Gloucester, 
" a part of whiche in conclusion came so nere that 
" they bereft hym bothe life and lande, as you shall 
" hereafter more manifestly percey ve ; for first this 
" yere Dame Elyanour Cobham, wyffe to the sayd 
" Duke, was accused of treason, for that she by 



NOTES. 113 

" sorcery and enchantment entended to destroy 
" the Kyng, to thentent to advaunce and pro- 
" mote her husbande to the crowne. Upon thys 
" she was examined in Sainct Stephen's Chapell, 
" before the Bishop of Canterbury, and there by 
" examination convict, and judged to do open 
" penaunce, in III open places within the cytie 
" of London, and after that adjudged to perpe- 
" tuall prisone in the Isle of Man, under the 
" keepyng of Sir Jhon Stanley Knyght. At the 
" same season were arrested as ayders and coun- 
" saillers to the sayde Buchesse, Thomas South- 
M well, prieste and chanon of Saincte Stephen's 
" Westmynster ; Jhon Hum prieste ; Roger Bo- 
" lyngbroke, a conyng nycromancer, and Mar- 
" gerie Jourdayne surnamed, the witche of Eye, 
" to whose charge it was laied, that thei at the 
" request of y* Duchesse had devised an image of 
'< waxe, representyng the Kyng, whiche by their 
I 



114 NOTES. 






" sorcery, a litle and litle consumed, entendyng 
" thereby in conclusion, to waist and destroy the 
" Kyngs person, and so to bryng him to deathe ; 
" for the vvhiche treison thei were adjudged to 
" dye, and so Margerie Jourdayne was brent in 
" Smithfeld, and Roger Bolyngbroke was drawen 
" and quartered at tiborne, takyng upon his 
" deathe, that there was never no suche thyng 
" by theim ymagined. Jhon Hum had his par- 
" don, and Southwell died in the toure before 
" execution. — -The Duke of Glocester toke all 
" these thynges patiently and saied litle. *' 

Hall. fol. 146. 

Roger Bolyngbroke's penance is described by 
Stow as follow: 

" And the 5 and twentieth day of July being 
Ci Sunday, Roger Bolyngbroke with all his 
* s instruments of negromancie, that is to say, a 
si chayre paynted wherein he was wont to sit, 



NOTES. 115 

" upon the 4 corners of which chayre stoode 4 
" swords, and upon every sword an image of 
" copper hanging with many other instruments. 
" He stoode on a high scaffolde in Paule's 
" Churchyard, before the crosse, holding a sword 
" in his right hand, and a scepter in his left, 
" arrayed in a mervellous attire, and after the 
" sermon was ended by maister Low Bishopp of 
" Rochester, he abjured all articles longing to the 
" crafte of negromancie or misowning of the faith, 
" in presence of the Archbishop of Canterbury, 
" the Cardinall of Winchester, the Byshop of Lon- 
" don, Salisbury and many other.'' — Stow, 381. 

619. So may his marrow waste, his bones decay J 
" Would he were wasted, marrow, bones, 
and all !" Part III. of Henry VI. 

The potency of waxen images is a superstition 
of classical origin, Not to refer to Anacreon, 



116 NOTES. 

who applies it to more pleasing purposes, Ovid 
has alluded to it : 
" Devovet absentes, simulacraque cerea fingit, 
" Et miseruna termes in jecur urget acus/' 
Heroides, Ep. VI. 91. 

6%6. They lend no Beryl to the powerless view. 
Grose has thus described the mode of conjura- 
tion by a Beryl or Crystal : 

" Another mode of consulting spirits was by 
" the Beryl, by means of a Speculator or Seer, 
41 who to have a clear sight ought to be a pure 
" virgin, or a youth that had not known woman, 
" or at least a person of irreproachable life and 
" purity of manners. The method of such con- 
" sultation is this. The conjurer having repeated 
" the necessary charms and adjurations, with 
c ' the Litany or Invocation peculiar to the Spi- 
" rits or Angels he wishes to call (for every one 









NOTES. 711 

" has his particular form) the Seer looks into a 
" Crystal or Beryl, wherein he will see the answer 
" represented either by types or figures ; and 
" sometimes, though very rarely, will hear the 
*■ Angels or Spirits speak articulately. Their 
" pronunciation, is, as Lilly says, like the Irish, 
" much in the throat/' 

631. And hurls his iron-braced arm o'er earth. 

For the epithet iron-braced and for the general 
idea of this line, I am indebted to Spenser, al- 
though I cannot immediately refer to the passage. 

645. Gains his eternal jewel for a smile. 

" and mine eternal jewel 

" Given to the common enemy of man." 

Macbeth. 

END OF NOTES ON PART FIRST. 



NOTES 

ON PART THE SECOND. 



NOTES. 



13. Haste thee, though hush' d for aye the lips whose 
rhyme 
Drank the rich current of departed Time, &c. 
In the fable of the Flower and the Leaf, which 
Dryden has modernized from Chaucer, the re- 
storer has added all the riches of his versification 
to a purer morality than we generally meet with 
in his pages. It is a tale fit indeed for a May 
morning. 

33. In vain your priests from morn till eve divine, 
No spark ethereal rests upon their shrine, #c. 
* And it came to pass at noon, that Elijah 
" mocked them (the Prophets of Baal), and said, 



122 NOTES. 

" Cry aloud, for He is a God, either he is talking, 
" or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or per- 
" adventure he sleepeth, and must be awaked." 
II. Kings, xviii. 27- 

27. Silent and chill to Nature's throne ye steal, 
And dim the grandeur which ye cannot feel. 
4C Surely vain are all men by nature who are 
" ignorant of God, and could not, out of the good 
" things that are seen, know him that is ; neither 
" by considering the works did they acknowledge 
u the workmaster; but deemed either Fire, or 
" Wind, or the swift Air, or the circle of the 
" Stars, or the violent Water, or the Lights of 
" Heaven, to be the Gods which govern the world. 
tc With whose beauty, if they, being delighted, 
" took them to be Gods, let them know how 
" much better the Lord of them is, for the first 
" author of beauty has created them. But if they 



NOTES. 123 

" were astonished at their power and virtue let 
" them understand by them, how much mightier 
" He is that made them. For by the greatness 
" and beauty of the creatures, proportionably 
" the maker of them is seen." 

Wisdom of Solomon, XIII. 

47. Mingled with herbs of mickle grace and power. 
8 O mickle is the grace and power which lies 
" In plants, herbs, stones, and their true qualities." 

Romeo and Juliet. 

55. So lost in dreams insufferably bright, 
His eye is dazzled by excess of light. 
Dryden is still finer than Gray. 
" Thy throne is darkness in the abyss of light, 
"A blaze of glory which forbids the sight/' 

Religio Laid* 



124 NOTES. 

61. Sport to the seasons, fashion' d by the skies, 
As they are fair or foul, he smiles, or sighs. 
Johnson in his Life of Milton has ridiculed 
" this dependence of the soul upon the seasons, 
" those temporary and periodical ebbs and flows 
" of intellect ;" but Johnson was cursed with a 
constitution which original disease had precluded 
from a feeling either of the beauty or the de- 
formity of Nature. 

72. And casts the mighty glamour o'er her face. 
See note on Stanza IX. Canto III. of The Lay 
of the Last Minstrel. 

S3. Such lavish treasure was not idly shed 
To lurk unseen and useless in its bed. 
" Paulum sepultae distat inert i« 
" Celata virtus." Horace. 



NOTES. 125 

95. JVhereer their knees the thankless many bow 
He pours to Truth his unremitting vow. 
I remember no poet (of established and per- 
manent reputation) who has professed infidelity 
excepting Lucretius, and Lucretius is never less 
poetical than when he begins to philosophize. 

111. Oh for that moment when no more repress' d 
The master Spirit rages in his breast. 
Dryden in his Dedication to Lord Orrery pre- 
fixed to the Rival Ladies, has admirably described 
the progress of composition. 

" This worthless present was designed you 
" long before it was a play ; when it was only a 
" confused mass of thoughts tumbling over one 
" another in the dark : when the fancy was yet in 
" its first work moving the sleeping images of things 



126 NOTES. 

"towards the light there to be distinguished, and 
" then either chosen or rejected by the judgment. 
" It was yours, my Lord, before I could call it 
" mine. And I confess in that first tumult of my 
" thoughts there appeared a disorderly kind of 
" beauty in some which gave me hope something 
" worthy my Lord of Orrery might, be drawn from 
"them. Butl was then in that eagerness of imagi- 
" nation which by over pleasing fanciful men flatters 
" them into the danger of writing. 

144. Shines in the brightness which itself has made. 

" Virtue could see to do what virtue would 

" By her own radiant light, though sun and 

" moon 
" Were hi the flat sea sunk." Comus, 373. 



NOTES. 127 

150. And sang " things unattempted yet' 1 below. 
" Cosa non detta in prosa mai ne in rima." 

Orlando Furioso. 
Which Milton has literal y translated, 
" Things unattempted yet in prose or rhime." 

115. Though now for ever round him fair Renown 
Girds the bright frontlet of her starry crown, &c. 
" O Musa, tu che de' caduchi allori 
" Non cireondi la fronte in Helicona, 
" Ma su nel Cielo infra i beati Chori 
" Hai di stelle immortali aurea corona/' 

Gerusalemme Liberata, I. 2. 

157. It was not so when cheerless and alone, &c. 
The life of Milton after his return from Italy 
appears to have been one succession of domestic 
inquietude and public calamity. The mistaken 



V28 NOTES. 

pride of his nephew and biographer Philips has 
endeavoured to conceal the narrowness of cir- 
cumstances which compelled the great Poet to 
undertake the ill-requited labour of a school, 
and although some obscurity still hangs over the 
tradition of Sir William Davenant's grateful in- 
terference, we have authentic records of the per- 
secution and imprisonment which he encountered 
from the restored Royalists. Johnson, with no very 
good will, has endeavoured to prove in contradic- 
tion to the general opinion, that the Paradise Lost 
was not unsuccessful on its first appearance. 
It is, however, well known that before it could 
obtain the bookseller's memorable price, it had 
to contend with the malice or the stupidity of 
the licenser Tomkyns, whose keen-sighted loyalty 
discovered treason in the " dim eclipse" whose 



NOTES. 129 

" disastrous twilight with fear of change per- 
" plexes monarchs." 

His latter days were worn out certainly in 
blindness and disease, perhaps not in competency. 
It was, I believe, Warburton who first pointed 
out the bitterness of feeling with which the Bard 
has so frequently identified himself with his own 
• Samson ; the parallel is indeed too often most 
lamentably correct. 

" Thou leav'st them 

" To th' unjust tribunals under change of times 
" And condemnation of th' ingrateful multitude; 
" If these they 'scape, perhaps in poverty, 
" With sickness and disease thou bow'st them 

" down; 
" Painful diseases and deform'd 
" In crude old age ; 

K 



130 NOTES. 

" Though not disordinate yet causeless suffering, 
" The punishment of dissolute days." 

Samson dgonistes, 695. 

167. And catch the holy droppings as they fell. 
So Spenser of Belphoebe. 

_, . « an d when she spake 

" Sweet words like dropping honey she did shed." 
Faerie Queen, II. 3, 24. 

171. He trod not hopeless though his evil days 

Lent the scant meed of half unwilling praise. 

" Though fallen on evil days, 

" On evil days though fallen, and evil tongues, 
" In darkness, and with dangers compass' d 
" round." Paradise Lost, VII. 25. 



NOTES. 131 

9,16. Till the One statue of his hope is there. 
If we could forget the Arabian Nights, the 
dramatic adaptation of one of the most beautiful 
stories related in them must be fresh in our 
memories. The Earl of Carysfort has given a 
very elegant version of this tale in the second 
volume of his Poems. 

231. Haply 'twas warbled ere condemned to earth 
His Spirit gloried in its purer birth. 
The Platonic belief that all knowledge is but a 
recollection of things known in a former and 
purer state of existence, may, without violence, 
be applied to Love even not of a Platonic nature : 
in these matters we may as well go on without 
stopping to reason. James the First was but a 
miserable gallant, but Lord Bacon seems to have 
thought him a good Platonist. In the first book 



132 SOTES. 

of the Advancement of Learning, he says, " I 
" have often thought that of all the persons liv- 
" ing that I have known, your Majesty were the 
" best instance to make a man of Plato's opinion 
" that all knowledge is but remembrance, and 
" that the mind of man by nature knoweth all 
" things, and hath but her own nature and ori- 
" ginal notions, which by the strangeness and 
" darkness of this tabernacle of the body are 
" sequester' d, again revived and restored. Such 
" a light of nature I have observed in your Ma- 
" jesty, and such a readiness to take flame and 
" blaze from the least occasion presented, or the 
" least spark of another's knowledge delivered." 

291. Not unremembef d, yet not idly known. 
Seneca's wish is very beautiful as far as it goes, 
but surely it is not quite far enough : 



NOTES. 133 

" Sic cum transierint mei 
" Nullo cum strepitu dies 
" Plebeius moriar senex. 
" Illi Mors gravis incubat 
" Qui notus nimis omnibus 
" Ignotus moritur sibi." 

295. It is not fear ; no thought of His can fall 
On Time for whom Eternity is all. 

Even Hume, whose national and monarchical 
prejudices would but little incline him to do 
justice in any case where a Steuart was concerned, 
has been compelled to bear, perhaps, an unwilling 
testimony to the constancy and the fortitude of 
Lord Russel. 

kt Russel's consort, a woman of virtue, daughter 
" and heir of the good earl of Southampton, threw 
" herself at the King's feet, and pleaded with many 



134 NOTES. 

" tears the merit and loyalty of her father, as an 
" atonement for those errors, into which honest, 
" however mistaken, principles had seduced her 
" husband* These supplications were the last 
" instance of female weakness (if they deserve the 
" name) which she betrayed. Finding all appli- 
" cations vain, she collected courage, and not only 
" fortified herself against the fatal blow, but 
" endeavoured by her example to strengthen the 
" resolution of her unfortunate lord. With a 
" tender and decent composure they took leave 
" of each other on the day of his execution. 
" ' The bitterness of death is now past,' said he, 
" when he turned from her. Lord Cavendish had 
" lived in the closest intimacy with Russel, and 
w deserted not his friend in the present calamity. 
" He offered to manage his escape, by changing 
" cloaths with him, and remaining at all hazards 



NOTES. 135 

" in his place. Russel refused to save his own 
" life, by an expedient which might expose his 
" friend to so many hardships. When the Duke 
" of Monmouth, by message, offered to surrender 
" himself, if Russel thought that this measure 
" would any wise contribute to his safety ; ' It 
V will be no advantage to me,' he said, ■ to have 
" my friends die with me.' Some of his ex- 
" pressions discover, not only composure, but 
" good humour in this melancholy extremity. 
" The day before his execution he was seized with 
" a bleeding at the nose. e I shall not now let 
? blood to divert this distemper,' said he to 
" Doctor Burnet, who attended him, ' that will 
" be done to-morrow? A little before the she- 
" riffs conducted him to the scaffold, he wound 
" up his watch, ' Now I have done' said he., 



136 NOTES. 

" with time, and henceforth must think solely of 
" eternity." History of England, Ch. LXIX. 

328. Piercd the reluctant gloom of Stoic pride. 
I have here followed Warburton's analysis of 
the Cartoon of St. Paul preaching at Athens. 

353. All other knowledge but obscurely floics 

There is but One, unknown himself who knows. 
" Dangerous it were for the feeble brain of 
" man to wade far into the doings of the most 
" High ; whom although to know be life, and joy 
" to make mention of his name, yet our soundest 
w knowledge is to know that we know him, not 
" as indeed he is, neither can know him ; and 
" one safest eloquence concerning him is our 
" silence, when we confess without confession 
" that his glory is inexplicable, his greatness 



NOTES. 137 

" above our capacity and reach." — Hooker's Ec- 
clesiastical Polity, I. 2. 

359. So would our feeble Reason gain the skies, 

The God who f ram' d must teach it how to rise. 
" It is an assured truth, and a conclusion of 
*' experience, that a little or superficial know- 
" ledge of philosophy may incline the mind to 
" Atheism, but a farther proceeding therein doth 
*f bring the mind to Religion. For in the entrance 
" of philosophy, when the second causes which 
" are next to the senses, do offer themselves to 
" the mind of man, if it dwell and stay there it 
<c may induce some oblivion of the highest Cause ; 
" but when a man passe th on farther and seeth 
" the dependance of Causes, and the works of 
" Providence, then, according to the allegory of 
" the poet, he will believe that the highest link 
L 



138 NOTES. 

" of Nature's chain must need be tied to the foot 
" of Jupiter's chair." — Bacon on the Advancement 
of Learning, Book I. 



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